*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And he smote his enemies in the hinder part - From behind; that is, as they fled. There are two ideas here: one, that they fled at his approach, or turned their backs; the other, that as they fled, he smote and destroyed them.
He put them to a perpetual reproach - As discomfited; as defeated and scattered; as unable to contend with him. The allusion is, probably, to the victories of David, occurring after the events related in the preceding verses.
He smote his enemies in the hinder part - This refers to the hemorrhoids with which he afflicted the Philistines. See the note on 1-Samuel 5:6-10 (note).
And he smote his enemies in the hinder parts,.... Not the Israelites, as Kimchi interprets it, but the Philistines, who in another battle were put to flight, and turned their backs, and so were smitten in their hinder parts; or rather this has reference to the Philistines being smitten with haemorrhoids, or piles in their posteriors, while the ark was retained a captive by them, 1-Samuel 5:6, and so the Targum paraphrases it,
"and he smote them that troubled them with haemorrhoids in their posteriors;''
the Greek version, as quoted by Suidas (c), is, "he smote his enemies on the back parts of the seat"; signifying, he says, a disease, modestly expressed:
he put them to a perpetual reproach; either by causing their idol Dagon to fall before his ark, and be broken upon the threshold of the house of the idol; in memory of which the priests ever after, nor any that came in thither, trod upon the threshold, 1-Samuel 5:3, or rather through their sending golden images of their haemorrhoids, and golden mice along with the ark, which were reserved to their perpetual reproach: other instances of the Lord's regard to Israel follow, in providing a proper place for the ark, and appointing a suitable governor over the people.
(c) In voce
And he smote . . . part--or, "struck His enemies' back." The Philistines never regained their position after their defeats by David.
Smote - Them with the piles. Reproach - He caused them to perpetuate their own reproach by sending back the ark of God with their golden emrods, the lasting monuments of their shame.
*More commentary available at chapter level.